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Table 5 Views of parents, children and facilitators following programme attendance/delivery

From: A cluster-randomised feasibility trial of a children’s weight management programme: the Child weigHt mANaGement for Ethnically diverse communities (CHANGE) study

Programme element

Views of parents, children, and facilitators after end of programme

General experiences

‘It was a nice refreshing change to see that we could facilitate rather than actually talk, erm, some of the families to death at times so it was, it was I would say nice.’ (Facilitator 1)

‘the whole thing it was delivered so softly it was just about making sensible choices, informed choices, you know, and I think that we got all the tools that we needed to do that, you know, we were told everything and the way it was delivered was superb, I can’t say that enough it was just from start to finish it was a really good course. Er, and yeah we’ve continued doing it and we’ve made changes and we’re continuing to make changes’ (P2148, Father, Black, completer)

‘I think all of it was because I could see her weight and I could see what I could do as a parent to help her and all my family. And my husband made a few changes in his diet as well’ (P2079, Mother, Pakistani, non-completer)

Facilitator guide

‘And for me to have my guide, my facilitator guide, so I’m sitting there with that one guide constantly and making notes and thinking about it um I like that as well, that’s a big help.’ (Facilitator 2)

Programme timing, attendance and barriers to attendance

‘It does make a massive difference because the family can come [on Saturdays], the whole family can come whereas during the week you know even some adults find it difficult to take that hour and a half you know they’re working’ (Facilitator 2)

‘Because of getting from school to go it was – and because going to college and stuff, it’s kind of – was kind of impossible to attend every session.’ (P2055, Mother, Black, non-completer)

Children attending

‘having the kids involved was such a big plus for us because like I said, there were lots of reasons why we’re, it was, you know, it was good to see them with their parent and what their relationship was like and act with them’ (Facilitator 1)

‘It was actually quite useful because most of the time children won’t listen to parents, but when they see a professional explaining they take on board.’ (P2092, Mother, Black, completer)

‘when you’ve got four and five year olds there they’re not interested because they’re four and five, whereas when they’re kind of six and seven they can sit and talk to you and listen’ (Facilitator 2)

‘it was about an hour and a half, and I think it was just too long for some of the little ones to sit and listen.’ (P2115a, Mother, White, completer)

Focus on healthy behaviours

‘we always veered away from the words weight, overweight, and it was healthy lifestyle which is fine but the results at the end anecdotally I don’t think were as good in that regard.’ (Facilitator 2)

Healthy eating/nutritional knowledge

‘the only thing that I really struggled with was week two [healthy eating session] to actually get that, all that information across and it didn’t really, then it kind of went against what we were trying to do, which was giving them a chance to sort of interact with us, because there was so much’ (Facilitator 1)

‘They explained quite well, I mean what to eat and what should be avoided. Although I already knew about this but it is common when we attend such events we always learn some new information, so this helped me a lot.’ (P2017, Mother, Pakistani, non-completer)

Physical activity

‘Well I would have liked to um, in the course I would like to like be more active, like run around and stuff’ (C2063, Child, Pakistani, completer)

‘I think that’s my biggest frustration about the course itself is that we’ve moved too far down the road to saying physical activity is key’ (Facilitator 2)

Interactive activities

‘it was quite fun altogether because we had to go round the room and we had to find the different foods. Then you had to find out how much they were labelled in, er how much sugar and fats are there in there.’ C2025, Child, Pakistani, completer)

‘Yeah but I thought there’d be more like activities for the kids and stuff, I think they only had activities on one day and the other time they had, that’s when they had to make snacks, so the rest of the time they were sitting there’ (P2124, Mother, Black, completer)

Peer support

‘There was a better I would say, erm, social environment between I would say the participants because we gave them I think more opportunities as well though in this course.’ (Facilitator 1)

‘It was nice to be around other people that had the same like issues with weight management stuff with their children, because the support was good, as in, you know, to be around other parents and, you know, just generally when you talk to the parents and stuff’ (P2112, Mother, Pakistani, completer)

‘The things that I enjoyed was like, I got to make new friends and everything.’ (C2091, Child, Indian, completer)

Programme website

‘I think it [the website] is great because we’d always been asking for a resource that we could give them um anyway, so I think it’s a great idea and I do like it, and I think it’s easy to get around’ (Facilitator 2)

‘we did use it every now and again just to look at food, the sugar content and the fat content because of the items on the site’ (P2148, Father, Black, completer)